described as “the usual crime” in print. 5 Historically, as Von Drehle notes, capital punishment has been used as a tool to repress the threat of a slave uprising with capital crimes having included dispensing medicine to their master or striking them hard enough to leave a bruise. 6 This racial bias can be seen in execution statistics, with one study showing that 49 percent of those executed between 1608 and 1972 were African American despite making up a smaller percentage of the population overall. 7 This clearly demonstrates the racial bias before 1972 in the application of capital punishment. The drive for abolition in the 1960s and 1970s could be linked to the Civil Rights Movement, which had an effect on public opinion which is something the Supreme Court rarely goes against. This clearly demonstrates one aspect of why there has been fluctuating support for capital punishment in the U.S. It is also important to note that the 1972 decision did not strike down the death penalty as unconstitutional, rather the justices took issue with the arbitrary nature of sentencing. 8 This paved the way for Gregg v. Georgia which led to the court lifting its moratorium and providing clearer sentencing guidelines which would make the application of capital punishment less arbitrary where applied. 9 Part of these new 5 David Von Drehle, ‘The Death of the Death Penalty: Why the Era of Capital Punishment Is Ending ’, Time (TIME.com, June 2015) <http://time.com/deathpenalty/> [accessed 24 April 2016]. 6 Ibid. 7 Death Penalty Information Centre, ‘Executions in the U.S. 1608- 2002 : The Espy File’, 2016 <http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions-us-1608-2002-espy- file> [accessed 24 April 2016]. 8 David McKay, ‘ Capital Punishment the Politics of Retribution’ , p. 143. 9 Ibid.
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